I haven’t been to Margate during the middle of the day for a very long time, but inspired by Mike Harrison’s picture of the heads of K9 or whatever they are supposed to be, rising like some left over military installation.........To be honest a lot of Margate looked as though there had been a recent war there, cataclysmic is the word that came to mind.
I eventually decided to have a cup of coffee and things went a bit third world, I was working on the principle that I would find a café in the café culture and check my emails and that if it was any good I would have lunch there and use their Wi Fi to publish this blog post.
After trying several cafés I was directed to Café G, the coffee was OK but the Wi Fi connection didn’t work properly.
I asked several of the shop keepers I know in Margate if there was a decent place to get lunch with a good Wi Fi connection, no one knew of one, I came to the conclusion that we are spoilt here in Ramsgate with the quality and diversity of our café’s and restaurants.
I would go over to Margate and Broadstairs early in the morning and take photographs far more often if I could get a decent cup of coffee and watch the BBC breakfast news program on my laptop, so if anyone knows anywhere this can be achieved in either place please let me know.
When I got back to the car to top up the parking, the bonnet had been dented in, presumably someone had jumped on it or something, I didn’t even bother to report it and did what I suppose most people do who have attempted to spend money in Margate, I left for Westwood Cross.
I wanted to look at the new Bhs Home store that has opened, I had a sandwich there in the café, it was as though the person who had set up the café there had heard about café culture, even looked in the door of some cafés but hadn’t actually experienced it.
There was a choice to three types of sandwich in packets, like in the supermarket, it was ok in a sort of motorway service station sort of way, no Wi Fi, I left hurriedly when they stared playing jingle bells over their muzac system, it was just too much.
I went into Matalan to try and buy a jacket my tweed one is coming to the end of a long life, the only jackets they do are black, grey, or look like some sort of advanced form of anorak.
By this time I had become somewhat snap happy so I took loads of shots out of the car window while my wife drove me back to civilisation.
I sorted out the car with the rubber hammer when I got home, which was to my mind a lot easier than filling out forms in the police station and an insurance claim. The picture above is of the reflection of some of Margate’s wonderful old buildings in the dent in my car.
Click on the links for the pictures, I am afraid there are over three hundred I will try and delete the worst of them at some time.
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop/id26.htm
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop/id27.htm
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop/id28.htm
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop/id29.htm
no one on here cept us chickens
ReplyDeleteI thought you needed cheering up Michael.
Read and savour the description of on site drainage plans announced at the very first knockings of a new development plan.
Michael, sorry to read about the car and its damage! Loved the pics. Did you notice how good the lovely building containing Rokkas looked and York Mansions? Lots of tax-payer's money spent on these in the past few years. The wrecks at the top of Fort Hill now need some tax-payer's largesse too. The question that needs to be asked is why some buildings merit tax-payer subsidy to improve their value to private/commercial owners whilst others do not?
ReplyDeleteRichard I must have missed something here, preprocessing and then through a public sewage plant sounds reasonable to me.
ReplyDeleteBertie I am not too worried about the car, as I park it in Ramsgate town centre where it occasionally is a victim of late night drunks, what worried me much more was this was the high street shopping car park in the middle of the day.
Not so much the effect on my car, but on Thanet’s economy and being very concerned that the council seems to be taking problem people away from other areas and housing them in the town centres, I have noticed this particularly in this part of Ramsgate recently where we have had some day time incidents that would certainly put off shoppers who witnessed them from returning.
What worries me here is that we could easily reach a situation where only privately policed out of town shopping centres are perceived as safe.
I suspect which buildings and areas get the most spent on them is through a mixture of the owner knowing how to work the system and having very active councillors in an area making sure what grant money is available is spent there.
There is also a considerable problem with rented shops, by this I mean if the tenant gets the building done up, the rent will rise and frankly at the moment town centre shop profits are lower than they were before out of town shopping centres, so there just isn’t the money for higher rents and the associated higher rates.
There is free and perfect wi-fi at BeBeached Cafe on Margate Harbour Arm. You will also find great coffee and yummy food.
ReplyDeleteLizzyM thanks it was where I was going next when the car got vandalised, something that I assume is unlikely to happen between dawn and 9am.
ReplyDeleteDo you know what time BeBeached opens as most mornings I would have to leave Margate by 7.15am to get the children to school?